Jaded HR: Your Relief From the Common Human Resources Podcasts
Jaded HR is a Human Resources podcast about the trials and tribulations of life in a human resources department….or just a way for Human Resources Professionals to finally say OUT LOUD all the things they think throughout their working day.
Jaded HR: Your Relief From the Common Human Resources Podcasts
Rage Bait: When Companies Claim to Eliminate HR Because We Have Tyrannical Zeal
Is eliminating HR departments the bold new frontier in business leadership, or a recipe for legal disasters? We dive into a provocative New York Post op-ed that's generating tons of views by claiming HR has evolved from protecting companies to enforcing "woke ideology."
The rage-bait article from a former Levi's executive proudly announces her intention to run a company without HR, complete with intentional misgendering and rejection of workplace respect policies. We break down why this approach isn't just misguided—it's potentially catastrophic from both business and legal perspectives.
Between fits of justified outrage, we explore the real-world situations HR professionals navigate daily, including new hire orientation snafus, handbook questions that could be self-solved, and the delicate balance of workplace dress code enforcement. Our discussion reveals how quality HR actually protects businesses while supporting employees, contrary to the mischaracterization of HR as "head girls" and "hall monitors."
The conversation takes fascinating detours into international workplace language differences, the evolution of HR as a strategic function, and why so many managers blame HR for decisions they themselves make. We also touch on SHRM's announcement of Joe Biden as a 2025 keynote speaker and what this signals about the organization's positioning.
Whether you're an HR professional tired of your profession being maligned or a business leader wondering about HR's true value, this episode offers critical insights into what happens when companies mistake HR for the enemy rather than a strategic partner in business success. Join us as we separate clickbait from reality in the world of workplace management.
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Had you actually read the email, you would know that the podcast you are about to listen to could contain explicit language and offensive content. These HR experts' views are not representative of their past, present or future employers. If you have ever heard my manager is unfair to me. I need you to reset my HR portal password, or Can I write up my employee for crying too much? Welcome to our little safe zone. Welcome to Jaded HR.
Speaker 2:Welcome to JDHR, the podcast by two HR professionals who want to help you get through the workday by saying everything you're thinking, but say it out loud. I'm Warren, I'm Cece. We are back on a normal schedule, as we're saying. This week we have this one. Next week we have Office Rewatch. The week after that, july 10th, we'll be dropping another new episode, but July 24th I'm going to be out of town and unless we record two, maybe we'll do it. Maybe we'll record two and do a second Office one and then drop that. That's require a little bit less work on my end.
Speaker 3:That'd be awesome. Give the people what they want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and y'all seem to be enjoying the office episode, so next week we'll have one of those as well. So, ah, wow, well, we were talking off air about and we've we've mentioned on there before as well you as a listener, really really like when we shit on SHRM. Our last episode yet again while we're talking about SHRM had well above average download numbers, in the first two weeks at least. And, yeah, you all, really, everything that we start talking about SHRM has higher downloads. So I'm going to start off by talking about SHRM.
Speaker 2:Give the people what they want. The algorithm we're doing it for the algo. So anyways and I got this, I will say, from Jamie Jackson on one of her Instagram accounts SHRM has added yet another keynote speaker to the SHRM 2025. And that is Joe Biden. And you know this is going to be a hard episode not to go political in. I've mentioned it any number of times. I consider myself fiercely independent and nobody on the right likes my opinions. Nobody on the left likes my opinions. I usually keep them to myself. But Jamie and a few other people since I saw Jamie's first with it have come up with the theory that this is a F you sort of to Donald Trump in terms of JCT not getting the Secretary of Labor position that it looked. Everybody was saying it was his.
Speaker 3:Look at that headcanon. Let's keep that story.
Speaker 2:Let's keep that story going, okay. So yeah, I don't know if there's any truth to it. I did, I think, online. I watched George W Bush, his interview with Johnny C Taylor and, honestly, the politics side, it was a good interview. It was good, it was funny, it was basically what you want. Was that two or three years ago? I don't remember, I forget. It was good.
Speaker 2:I think Joe Biden, because he from day one has been such a staunch pro-labor, is going to be very interesting. And I've said before I think Sherm has really gone pro-labor over the past five, 10 years or more. So I think that's going to be an interesting conversation. So yeah, I can see Joe Biden being a little bit more than just a political hack. The speaker, you know a giant, not just big name, giant name, but I'm just wondering how much of my dues are paying for this. And honestly, because of his pro-labor background, it might have a little more substance than maybe, say, and I just remember thinking that the Bush talk with JCT wasn't bad and it was pretty good, but I can't remember the first thing they discussed at all. So I don't know what is going to be said or how it would compare, but he does have a little bit of chops to talk about labor and HR issues. To that extent I would say so yeah, well, we will see where that one goes.
Speaker 3:I'd be down. I'd be down to see him talk. I mean, I saw Martha Stewart talk, so I think Joe Biden's better than Martha Stewart, in my opinion, in my taste, I would say, but I don't know. That would be interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's just always so weird. I always wonder what the thought process is for selecting these speakers. So who's available.
Speaker 2:Who can we afford Exactly?
Speaker 3:However, I am going to say I like the theory that this was an SEO, because you know like I mean.
Speaker 2:You want it to be true.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think I sometimes think Trump would be butthurt over that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, he'll be butthurt over anything, anything Of all weeks, you know, of all weeks us to meander into political realms like we're going through today, the week we're having. If you haven't been anywhere in the world for the past, I don't know since Saturday. It's been a pretty interesting couple of days here, but keep out of that as well.
Speaker 2:I need a nap, I need a nap, I need a nap, yeah, so let's switch gears. I'm going to tell I've got a couple of stories that have happened to me the past few days and I just wanted to share nothing. I don't know we're. If we discuss, we discuss. If not, we'll just move on to the next. So one of my things the president of my company is pretty strong about me actually running the new hire orientations, and then not only me running it, but each of the directors. If you're talking about project controls, the director of project controls is coming the high level for the new hires to get to know everybody. But I'm sort of in there all day coordinating and I'm g-chatting the next person saying, okay, you're up in five minutes, if I remember I'm very bad about uh, I'm very bad about remembering the oh, yeah, yeah, ping the next person and and things like that.
Speaker 2:So we, that's what we do. Well, one of the the speakers I'm going to let this person rename, nameless or by title or name or anything like that. Like I said, a couple of people from the work listen and they will know, but one person. They start off the very first thing they say after the intros and all that and who they are and what they do. They say I can't stand reading verbatim from PowerPoint slides. Yet for the next half hour we get letter for letter. And not only are they reading letter for letter off the PowerPoint slides, they are butchering it the same thing they've been saying for years and they are talking very robotic, like they are actually reading this.
Speaker 2:And it's so painful for me. I'm just sitting there at this point. A lot of times I'm checking my email and trying to, because orientation lasts half a day. I'm trying not to fall behind on the rest of my duties while other people are speaking. But it's just like and I'm so tempted to pull like Christine Applegate did to Ron Burgundy in Anchorman just change the teleprompter and make it say something completely ridiculous and she would read that shit straight on through without even realizing what she's saying. Part of me just wants to do that. So bad, just because I'm an asshole sometimes. That's the worst. It would make it fun for me at least.
Speaker 2:But anyways, part of me just wants to do that so bad just because I'm an asshole.
Speaker 1:sometimes that's the worst, it would make it fun for me at least.
Speaker 2:But anyways, let's see here and the second thing I put, it's just a one-liner here Example of no good deed goes unpunished A situation where someone on my team went the extra mile for one employee and somebody else got jealous and got butt hurt that nobody's gone the extra mile for them and I'm like I've never known you need any assistance. But anyways, I'm just like that sucks yeah. And I don't want my person to think they should not do that. I'm very proud of what they did, right.
Speaker 3:No good deed goes unpunished. Yeah, so one of my security blanket or comfort blanket shows is the show Superstore.
Speaker 2:Yes, you've talked about that.
Speaker 3:I love that show but if you've never heard of it, it's very much like the Office and it's very much like Parks and Recreation Of that nature. But it's a show that happens in, like this fictional version of Walmart, and it's everyone who works there and they're mostly all like floor workers and there's like one episode episode it was like one of the first episodes and one of the main characters tells another main character you don't help people here. Helping people is like quicksand, it'll suck you down and the whole episode is like just people, like no good deed goes unpunished and at the end they all have to take a sexual harassment course so it's a great show, again if you've never watched it give it a watch.
Speaker 2:I keep meaning to watch that. As you've spoken about it a couple times, I've heard other people speak about it, I keep meaning to. I'm I'm back on my food network addiction, watching old shows and crap like that. And then, of course, we lost ann burrell. We lost ann Burrell. We lost Anne Burrell last week, I heard. I've been you know she was on Iron Chef like 25 plus years ago and I've just seen her on Food Network and those shows forever. I've been a Food Network junkie for that long and if, like my wife, her TV noise, if you will, is investigation, discovery and all that true crime stuff.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:My TV noise is Food Network and so if I'm just sitting there scrolling through Facebook or doing something else completely mindless, you can pretty much guarantee Food Network is on in the background and I just love it. But anyways, yeah. So here is a question I was asked just earlier this week and it's just too perfect of a question to not talk about.
Speaker 3:I'm here for it and I wrote it down word for word.
Speaker 2:They caught me in the hallway.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:I have a question about the handbook, so I'm going to stop there. I hear that and I'm going to stop there. I hear that and I'm thinking, yes, somebody's read it and wants to know. Actually, I'm currently working on handbook updates and things and I was like, oh, maybe this is something I can add to clarify if they have a question, maybe something wasn't crystal clear. But they go on and then it goes from here how many days bereavement do I get for my sister-in-law passing away? So in their question they acknowledge they know the answer is going to be in the handbook, correct.
Speaker 3:But they don't go to the freaking handbook to get that answer. We just used you like a personification of Ask Jeeves. Yes, we just used you like a personification of Ask Jeeves yes, Ask Jeeves Can you please regurgitate something from the handbook, because I am too lazy to look it up.
Speaker 2:Exactly. But I honestly had my little Toby moment I got excited about. You know, toby gets to break out his book and he gets to do some real HR work, like later way down the road, and he's all excited and into it. And I'm like, oh, somebody read the handbook and I'm thinking, like I said, I'm doing handbook updates and there's a couple of things I think could be clarified. I'm like, ooh, like this will be opportunity for me to find out. Maybe something else isn't cleared I can update. But no, you asked me a question acknowledging that the answer is in the handbook and I still answered acknowledging that the answer is in the handbook and I still answered I'm a. I'm a. You know, I'm jaded on the podcast. I'm jaded at home. I'm not. I I shouldn't say I'm not. I try my hardest not to be jaded at work, but yeah, I'm really not jaded this podcast.
Speaker 3:It really just it's not jaded. Okay, I'm gonna really I'm gonna try to look this up really quick.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Because you said something about the handbook and that reminded me of a post I saw last night on Human Resources Reddit that made me crack up. Let's see, okay, here we go. We're going off script today. Okay, so this was on the human resources subreddit and it says we have an employee that is oftentimes not wearing a bra to work. Some days it is not extremely noticeable because she wears blazers and sweaters, but other days and this is the quote from the reddit post from the manager they are just out there okay so we are a government entity and often deal with members of the public.
Speaker 3:Any advice on approaching this?
Speaker 2:we require business dress and would like her to wear a bra oh gosh, I don't want to touch this one with a 10-foot I don't want to so I think there's actually been case law, and it's in the back of my mind that that can be discriminatory, requiring certain undergarments for women that aren't required for men, and and things like that so, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:So anyway, someone did say like I don't see this going well for you. You can have that conversation, but then go right to your legal department because you're going to need them yes go to your legal department first, then have a conversation and then there are some people who are like you. You might have to talk to her about what professional conduct means in the handbook and everyone's like I don't want to touch this, like nobody.
Speaker 2:No one wanted this, so anyway nobody wants to touch it, but, as hr, it's one of those things you're going to get reeled into and it depends on how visible everything is and things like that. Are they hanging low? Are they hanging out? Is it very cold in there? I don't know.
Speaker 3:I think the issue is that it's very cold.
Speaker 1:So I think everyone's just like.
Speaker 2:Everybody knows.
Speaker 3:The other piece of it is like really man, like. Why is the man really Like? I don't know, it's just, it's a dumb conversation to have. But something came up in the handbook about it being like, like how you put dress code in the handbook. I thought it was an interesting rabbit hole to go down. The consensus in that group was don't even fucking think about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Unless you're going to, unless you're going to, mandate all the men to like cover their nipples then, you. You have no nothing to stand on.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and and then being a man, hr, which we're going to discuss a little bit later, there's like so I'm coming out of that conversation as a creep, no matter how much time I spend wordsmithing it and trying to be politically correct, I'm going to be the creepster, I'm going to be the I don't know what the word is, but I'm going to be the shunned person for that, yeah, and let's see here. So, okay, this is today. Just this morning this occurred, and so this is the. Am I the asshole, is Warren the asshole?
Speaker 2:And generally, speaking the answer is yes. But where I work, new employees have to do eight hours of DOD training. It's done on external websites through the DCSA or what I don't even know the acronyms or anything like that, but it's done externally. And then, as you're doing the training, the first page of this, when you get to the external trainings, you do your internal training too on this. But in the RLMS, the first page it goes to, it says you must download the course completion certificate and turn it into receive credit. That's on the overview page.
Speaker 2:Then you get to the individual module and it says the exact same thing you must download the course completion certificate and turn it into HR to receive credit. Then you go to the external site and in bold letters now there's a lot of verbiage here so this one can be lost but the external site at the DCSA says you must print or save a local copy of the certificate as proof of course completion. Cdse does not maintain course records of completion and so anyways. So, and then the website, the external website right before, shows you your certificate. It tells you again so that's four times. You're being told download the certificate, download the certificate. New employee not very technical, friendly person goes through, does all his training and did only well. He downloaded two of the certificates.
Speaker 3:Two of four Halfway there.
Speaker 2:Well, there's like six of them, so he downloaded two of the certificates, two of four Halfway there.
Speaker 2:Well, there's like six of them, so he did two of six that he had to do, but it tells you four times that it's in there, anyways. So I'm telling him well, unfortunately, you're going to have to go back and redo these, and these are not trainings that you can just click next, next, next, next and get through one, like a lot of training you can. You know, you have to wait for the play bar to get all the way to the other end of the screen before you can hit next, or the next screen doesn't even apply up here until you get to that point. So I tell him well, unfortunately, you're going to have to do this all again. So the employee is upset with me.
Speaker 2:So the manager comes to me and the manager says well, you only allow eight hours for training, how are we supposed to pay him for this? And I this is why I said this is a quote, not my problem I said we've already paid him for my training budget to do this, this training, so it's not coming from the training budget. You can talk to your VP about using overhead, using something else, but it's not coming from the training budget. And he did not like that. So what say ye in the L&D world of where we have to bill for training, allocate our hours and things like that. It's not coming out of my budget like that. Where I'm not, it's not coming out of my budget.
Speaker 3:I would say that this person has failed on their first day and they are to immediately be sent home.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:And the thing is they are a. They're not going to work with computers. They're not going to. They're going to work with computers once a year. They're annual training, which is good Looks like next year is going to be really fun for us. And then open enrollment. They'll have to do annual training, but, yeah, they're not going to be. Well, they have to do their time cards online, but I think we've got that covered pretty well. But, yeah, you've got two of them done.
Speaker 2:I don't know, it's just you have to do it now, like I said, the one page where it says on the front page of the external page, where it says that the, where it says you must download and they don't record taking it, or whatever it says it does not maintain records of course, completions. That's buried in just a ton of verbiage. So you know, you know, unless you know, it's there Anyways. So that was my this morning type thing. So let's get to the meat and potatoes. You found this great article, just like we start recording at 830. I think you sent it to me after 8 pm, yeah, to look at and I was like you know, I've got a whole page of stuff to cover. I'm like Nope, this, this is it. This is going to be the the show today.
Speaker 3:I just want to say that this is, this is real time power of HR. This is I'm gonna let my secret go my weekly prompt, or my pre podcast prompt of give me a rundown of things that are relevant in HR in the news this week, and then it just tells me Okay, using AI, exactly. Oh, my gosh. Oh, by the way, my AI. I have personified it. It is my assistant. His name is so pierre did.
Speaker 2:Helps me with my research now, okay, I, I use I have gemini, which is all going to be replaced by I can't say it because the google assistant I'm looking to watch my monitor here behind me to save it listens in. But I made it a british female voice and my wife hates that. I was like it's. I've made it a British female voice and my wife hates that. I was like I made it personal and things like that.
Speaker 3:But with that, Kevin does the same thing. It's a British woman.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I think it's the best sounding voice overall Anglophile, I guess, but anyways. Yeah, but right now Jim and I still have the same voice. But I have gotten Jim and I to remember certain things, to say, okay, I'm getting ready to go to Costa Rica. I've programmed it to say teach me 10 phrases in Spanish a day, but when I ask you to do that, make sure it is pertinent to Costa Rica, because they give me Barcelona, or you would say Barthelona, as they would say. Different things mean you know different contexts of Spanish all over the world and anyways. So I've been trying to do that, as I've embarrassed myself too many times trying to remember my junior high Spanish and failing I've probably told the story on the podcast before.
Speaker 2:We were in Puerto Rico visiting my sister as a house there and we were in a parking garage trying to get out. I'm actually doing really well speaking Spanish. Mid-sentence I switched straight over to German and my kids are in the backseat laughing. I used to speak German very fluently, got a German scholarship and things like that.
Speaker 2:And I didn't realize it until we left and my daughter and son were just like in tears. My wife doesn't have a clue what I'm saying in any language, even English, but they said you weren't speaking Spanish, dad'm like what? And? And I was like what I didn't say anyway. So yeah, but I love the way you can personalize it and give it commands and give it like I ask it for things about podcasts and I I've set it up to find information for about jaded hr, if it's ever mentioned. It hasn't been mentioned, but once yet. But but see if we get any mentions and things like that. So anyhow, back to the story.
Speaker 2:This stupid story, All right Well okay, it's both got me thinking get me fired up. As I said, it did get me fired up when you sent it to me, but there's some points to it. In HR, when you give a review, some managers like to give you some good news, then the bad news and then the good news again, and I call it the shit sandwich, because nobody hears. The employee only hears the good stuff at the ends and doesn't hear what they need to hear in the middle. Well, this will be an open face shit sandwich. I'm going to start by saying some good things about this article, but then the rest of it shit.
Speaker 3:I am Well as we talk about this. I was very heated about this at first.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And then, as I was like piecing things together, I was like that meme with the woman in the math. I was like, oh, I see what this is, so we'll get to that in a second. Okay, oh, okay I'll let you.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say, give us your theory.
Speaker 3:What you're thinking is, I had a theory, a similar theory no, because I feel like once we go through this, I feel like our audience will be catching on pretty soon too. So yeah, so there's an article in the the New York Post and it was by a woman named Jennifer Say S-E-Y. So she's a former Levi's brand manager or brand president, and she started a startup company and she decided to write this like op-ed. So the company is called XX x x y athletics and it is the company is to protect women's sports, so you know I'm gonna stop you there's.
Speaker 2:That's where I was going to give it two giant thumbs up. Okay, because you know I'm not going to try. I'm going to try my hardest and I get a bit political. But where I really feel strongly about is men competing as women in women's sports. We saw in the Olympics the boxing debacle, the Canadian lady who would not box, the Russian man, and things like that. I, you know if someone wants to be trans or it doesn't affect me in any way, shape or form. But when I see, especially in a sport like boxing or some of these other sports, where these men are, it's just abuse of of women at that point so I'm against. You can be trans, you can be. If you're going to compete, you have to compete at the right level. I mean, go, I'll try and go.
Speaker 2:Go back to the seventies when Billie Jean King used to play Arthur Ashe, the two best tennis players at the time in the world. Billie Jean King couldn't keep up with Arthur Ashe. In golf there's been the best female golfers playing some of the best men and it doesn't end up well In sports. You see what's made all the headlines a couple of years ago and I can't remember the girl's name or the man's name, the female swimmer I think she's from Georgia and the man swimmer who competed for multiple years as a man I can't remember either names, but he was like ranked like 200 in men as a man. Then he became a woman and was the top ranked woman, etc. So it's yeah, I don't believe. Even if it's not physical competition like contact competition, I don't believe that. That's my own opinion. I'll just sort of live and die on that. But I do applaud that. That's what her company basis is for, because I would not want my daughter I don't know playing racquetball.
Speaker 3:The cards are stacked against you physiologically, and yeah, I wasn't even going like whoa, no, no, like I was just saying that this, so, as we're going to dig into this, it's not even whether or not you're totally you know, we are not a political podcast, I'm just like you're totally entitled to your opinion.
Speaker 3:But I'm saying I think what I was going to say was I think this is a strategic move and this is nothing but rage bait to promote her company, which, bing, bing, bing, bing or not, yes, and that's what I was going to say. I don't think this has anything to do with. Like her, she just wants to say something provocative so that we all kind of and she knows, I mean honestly like I think there's, she's clearly very as we go through it, she clearly has political beliefs and she is using those political beliefs as we go through her thoughts on hr and dei, and I think that's what this is. This is just a rage-baity article that is going to be like I'm the next company that's going to eliminate HR and it's like no, you're not, you're going to have fucking problems is what you're going to fucking have because you don't have HR.
Speaker 2:You've said absolutely everything. I've seen as I read the article. That was the good piece of the shit. You've said absolutely everything. I've seen as I read the article. That was the good piece of the shit sandwich. The rest of it is not going. I'm not going to agree with this person on a lot, but I do think it is an op-ed. Anybody can write an op-ed. It's well-written. I can't say anything bad about that.
Speaker 2:But I, so bad, just want to go line by line reading this article and stating what it is, because, honestly, I don't know any other way to do it, because I can't just pick a line here and a line there. It's like 80% of this article is provocative to the point that we've got to say something about it.
Speaker 3:She argues that HR today is more about ideological policing than supporting people or profits, and this is a quote from her. So HR once protected companies from lawsuits. Now it's a woke mob enforcing DEI ideology and yeah, which I love that garbage.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I'm like just lockstep with everything you've said on this, but one thing that stood out in terms of making this be a self-promotion article versus a true op-ed article let's say something inflammatory. They'll get picked up a lot of places and if you're going to get picked up somewhere, the New York Post is not a bad place to do it. But she talks about her Instagram post that said the exact same thing when she announced I want to be the first company without HR, and the audience went wild and the line went viral in an Instagram post with over 5 million views. That tells me everything. That paragraph tells me. Yeah, this is self-promotion with some clickbait in it to get the HR people reading it, and things like that. So, yeah, I think.
Speaker 3:I think my favorite quote is when she said I'm gonna misquote it but she basically said I'm running a business and I don't need the women of the view walking around the office policing what people can and cannot say. And I was like, well, that's just fucking misogynistic, first of all. Second of all, okay, so we got a glimpse of Warren's point of view. Now we're getting a glimpse of Christina's point of view, Because I'm like, honestly, I'm a little bit of like a staunch feminist. So when I hear people turning HR into like it's like the women's club and it's the women's like and it's the mean girls of corporate and I think she actually said like the mean girls or the whatever sending out their corporate memos, I'm like fuck you. I'm so sorry, Like get, I didn't pray, you just me Coming from a feminist point of view.
Speaker 2:Think of it from a dude point of view. I don't know what it is, because she does harp on women. She does, and I know when I I've said it on the podcast probably before. You know all the HR, you know kindergarten teachers wearing their fuzzy sweaters and you know singing kumbaya and holding hands and things like that. I don't think that gets terribly misogynistic. It probably is, but not as bad as this lady gets. Because here we go, hr departments today are packed with Tracy Flicks.
Speaker 2:The way-too-eager high schooler played by Reese Witherspoon in the movie Election Flick is the archetypal head girl, a term derived from the British school system that is tight hierarchy of internal discipline and ambitious and officious with little actual skill or intellect. Hand razors like these are not selected to lead for their intelligence or ability, but conscientious and willingness to follow and uphold the rules. That's fine when HR had no power, and okay, that's fine when HR had no power, and okay this whole thing. And she was with Levi's and she was with these other companies you mentioned. It sounds like she's never been involved with a real professional HR team or real HR professionals. I'll say it any number of times HR. The reason we are the laughingstock of professions is oh, you were a good fill in the blank, you'll be great in HR. And we get the wrong people who want to have a pizza party, who want to put up a really pretty bulletin board and have an employee of the month type thing all the fun, cool kumbaya type stuff, but it doesn't cut it when the shit hits the fan, it really doesn't. So, yeah, I think she's been exposed to the wrong HR.
Speaker 2:Let's see here what I had and you mentioned about the wanting to police the words you say In 30, almost 30 years of working in HR, yes, I have told people they can't say words, but they're usually some really big, important words that we're not going to be. I'm not going to say on the podcast, say on the podcast, and those are the type of words I've had to have the wonderful conversations. We don't say these at work or this is why you're being fired because you have said these at work, type things. I've never told somebody they can't say a certain word now, but she goes on. I want to scroll down to the oh anyways.
Speaker 2:And now in the 2020s, hr asserts its newly found clout with tyrannical zeal Tyrannical zeal, Tyrannical zeal yeah but let me scroll to the end here, where she said something oh okay, my company is a walking talking HR violation. She says we misgender all day long. In fact, speaking the truth, as I call it, is required to work here. We're not in school anymore. We don't need a persnickety mismanners adequate enforcer telling us to be nice.
Speaker 3:How dare we treat someone the way they want to be treated?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, by saying and promoting that what're doing, what she's doing, she's going to find and knock on wood, I have not found this employee yet. But there are those employees out there. They're just looking to get hired so they can sue your ass. And so they're going to hire someone that they don't know is trans or I don't even know all the correct terminology not cis, male or whatever the right thing is to say. I'm too old to follow all that stuff. But anyways, and that person is going to sue them and they're going to refer to this article where she says oh yeah, in June of 2025, she says we intentionally do it and it is required at our job. And this is why you need an HR person, asshole, I tell you, because you are going to get yourself sued. And, yes, that's part of what HR does is we do help enforce, trying to keep your ass out of a sling as much as we can. But anyways, I'll continue to go on, go it alone without HR. So I'll assume the so-called risk so I can lead in my own voice and all the things she says throughout here that HR does. Hr is not the one making those decisions. It's either A, a law, b coming from the C-level suite, that this is what we're going to do here. And even if HR said, hey, demi, that's not the best idea, nope, ceo says it's doing that, okay, we're doing that type of thing.
Speaker 2:She's never had good HR. Oh, there were some other good things, oh. So she interviewed in 2023 for CEO at an $8 billion retailer and she went through all this interview things and then her interview. My last interview was with the HR representative on the board. Her first question was will you apologize for what you've done and what I've done? I was an advocate for opening schools during COVID. Blah, blah, blah. That didn't matter to the HR lady. I violated her tightly enforced script. I didn't apologize and I didn't get the job. And then, over the last two decades this is great HR has gone from operational support to operation head. Girl hall monitor.
Speaker 2:Oh oh my gosh, they force feed trainings about acceptable language Once again. Never in my career have I done anything, done a training on an enforceable language. We're not going to have a training that says, okay, these are the words you don't use.
Speaker 3:George Carlton's skit. You have to say the same thing.
Speaker 2:These are the seven magic words. Well, there's more than seven nowadays words. Well, there's more than seven nowadays. But anyways, you don't say these things.
Speaker 3:They make merit out to be racist. That's just common sense in society.
Speaker 2:They make merit out to be racist. I mean, they set out a criteria based on risk avoidance rather than excellence. Now, risk avoidance can go hand in hand with excellence If you have a well-treated, well-maintained workforce. That doesn't. She is going to be on like John Hyman's worst list of employers at some point. She's going to do something so ridiculously stupid that she's going to get the award for this, but anyways, yeah, oh, and she addresses us, calling her misogynistic. Am I being sexist and calling them head girls? In 2023, 76% of all HR managers in the US were female. The shoe fits and, yes, men can be head girl type too. These head girls make everyone add pronouns that are email signatures. It's just these time suckers should focus away from the business.
Speaker 3:You know what she is. She's a corporate pick me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like she's literally just like the executive version of a pick me. She just she's not like the other girls, she's a she's. She runs her business like a big woman. Like OK, I get it. Like she's not like us, she's like the man Get out of here, go away. I'm tired of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly my critics of my viral comment push back me. You need HR to avoid unnecessary risk. That's the fear HR leverages to maintain its unearned influence. It just everything she says and does is just really stomach-churning in this. Karma's going to come back around to her, but anyways she goes in and talks about how she's going to do it her own way. She's just asking for trouble, asking for it, and this whole thing is a self-promotional piece wrapped in an op-ed.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I just. And her business is only a little bit over a year old, so she probably isn't at the point yet where she really needs. I mean, I can't imagine how many employees she has. You know, under 100. You could probably get away without a true hr person.
Speaker 3:You might want someone to bounce stuff off of, but yeah, they she has a lawyer who knows a little employment law and can at least tell her to shut the fuck up yeah, hey you are wrong don't say stupid shit at work and don't publish pieces like this yeah, just the the vitriol for hr.
Speaker 2:and like I do read the anti-HR subreddits occasionally, I do read those things and it's the same. You know not coming from someone of her level and everything, but it's the same stuff every single time. Hr made me do this or I lost my job because HR Nobody in the history of the world is. I won't say this. It doesn't happen very frequently that someone loses their job because of HR, you do it to yourself. If HR and what it is is, they got shitty managers that say, well, hr says I have to fire you because you know that's where all this bad HR comes from.
Speaker 3:Real talk. We had to like tell managers we would do performance reviews and we would have calibration, and then some people's scores would change from like a, from a three to a two or something, and it was a three point scale. It's fine. But the manager would be like well, I really wanted to give you a three, but and it was like come on, like okay, first of all, why can't you just be a leader, like yeah, have a decision and stick with it? And also like we can tell when you're over inflating ratings for people, like not everyone on your team is an, a player, like sorry, it's just very seldom that that happens. So it's just like, why are you pulling it on HR? But that's like another example of oh, my HR made me do it. No, hr, no, grow some huevos, just do your job.
Speaker 3:I'm on fire tonight. I'm so sorry this woman has me so riled up.
Speaker 2:No, I agree. Like I said, I read this. You said it just before 8, right around eight o'clock. I read it. I was like just whoa whoa. Like I said, I could go line for line down this whole article and just say that some of the stupid things, oh, front of house employees, builders, makers and service providers must spend a significant amount of time thinking about the words they use rather than their actual jobs.
Speaker 3:Really, when does that really happen? I don't know. Do you read emails?
Speaker 2:No one's thinking about the words they're putting in there Exactly. Well, are your employees just so uncouth that they can't have any common dignity and respect for other human beings? There's a lot of people I don't like in this world. I'm not going to sit there at work and do anything that you know. Even I can't even think of somebody the worst boss I've ever had let's say they were my subordinate oh gosh, this is just this, this fill-in-the-blank protected class or whatever is such a whatever People don't do. I won't say people don't do that, because John Hyman has a list and it's pretty long every year, but most, the vast, vast majority of people don't have, don't do this type of stuff. They understand. Hey, let's just be good human beings and treat each other nicely. And if you treat each other nicely, they're going to like where they work and they're going to do better for you and they're going to feel more engaged.
Speaker 2:And I would go as far to say that maybe some of her employees have additional stress because they maybe don't agree with her political beliefs and her and I was asking you what the question before we started recording. What's the opposite of woke? I don't know what the opposite of this person is no brain activity. But you're going to have someone in there that their son or daughter might be, might be transitioning or not in her world of, you know, being misgendered or something like that. That's, that's a whole nother thing and saying, bragging, that they misgender people. I mean I feel bad just calling someone by the wrong name and I am awful with names you know it's funny, like really quick, like before we go too too long, so thanks.
Speaker 3:Speaking of policing words, oh, a friend of mine, her, her husband, is working for an australian-based company and he was talking about, like their work culture is so beyond insane that, like they, they drop the c word every five seconds at work and that is the british thing.
Speaker 2:It's a australian thing.
Speaker 3:They oh yeah, and it's just like so funny to hear him talk and it's just so funny, like just to be like, oh, just, he don't worry about him, he's such a c word and then like what, like so it was just funny for my friend's husband. He's like an executive level individual, like he's VP level, and he was just like. I feel like I am the most polished and prude person in that room because, and he is not a polished or prude person.
Speaker 2:Oh, it is so funny. Well, I thought you were going to go down another route because Ashley, also from HR Besties and one of their older like maybe first year podcast episodes Ashley was talking about she worked for a multinational company and they wanted them to use more of the British pronunciation of things like process and things Americans to use those terms. I'm like and she's like, why? Why are you doing that? If I were to be told to use the word or pronounce, I should say process or whatever. You know all the. You know the little fun, intricate differences between our.
Speaker 3:Oh, I could take the lift.
Speaker 2:You know the lift. Yeah, oh, hold the lift, you know, or whatever, I don't know, it's just those things. I'm not really. If they say lift, I say elevator. We know what each other are saying, you know, and and things like that. I don't see the need to ask your employees to, to adapt to, even if it's the same language, the nuances and quirks of that's just a stupid American saying the American word. So, anyways, I just think that was funny. I sort of thought that's where the direction you're going to go with these international companies. So, yeah, well, I think we've had enough fun for today at the expense of our friend at XXXY Athletics. Yeah, good luck with that.
Speaker 3:Good luck in your first lawsuit. Yeah, have the day you deserve.
Speaker 2:Have the day you deserve and remember if you are going to sue her. You can find this article on Google her name or search New York Post. You can find it right there.
Speaker 3:Because the internet is forever.
Speaker 2:And we're going to be talking about something very close to that very soon.
Speaker 3:Speaking of yes, yes. Some foreshadowing.
Speaker 2:This episode we're talking about is going to take some real research and dive and it's going to be. I've got production ideas of how we're going to do it already. That's why we're not running with it already. That might be our July episode. That isn't an office episode. So, wow, this was fun. This really was a lot of fun. We've almost gone an hour and I didn't didn't think we'd get anywhere near that long.
Speaker 3:I had some rage, we released some rage. It was good, good time.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Let's see here. I want to thank our Patreon supporters. If we have any more after this Hallie, the original Jaded HR rock star, bill and Mike. Thank you for supporting us. You can support us too. I haven't looked for reviews in since the last time I talked about it, oh, oh, but you got it something on. You got some feedback on your Instagram from listener feedback.
Speaker 3:I got listener feedback, Okay so we got something wrong people.
Speaker 3:We got something wrong. And let me just say when I'm wrong, thing wrong. And let me just say when I'm wrong, I will say I'm wrong. So apparently in our february episode or march, when we were talking about an individual at work, their team was doing a myers briggs that was like themed for star wars. Oh, it was in may, that's what it was. Yeah, um made the fourth. It's my most treasured holiday. We were like kind of ragging on this woman, being like, oh you know, this is why we can't have nice things, karen. So it turns out that she wasn't upset that she got the Darth Vader rating. It was that people took the test for her and did the answers as if they were for her. So in this case it does change the perspective a little bit that maybe her team was bullying her a little bit, so she did not take the test. It was just her team that was just effing with her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but there's something like that. If someone took the test, I, you know, we, we took the test, we misrepresented it, we were wrong, whatever you want to say. But if someone took the test that made me out to be Darth Vader or Jar Jar Binks or anything like that, I'd roll with it. I'd have some fun Jar Jar.
Speaker 3:Screw that If people made me Jar Jar Binks, I would be quitting my job. I am no group Jar Jar Binks.
Speaker 2:But yeah, the only person hated more than Darth Vader. People love Darth Vader. Actually. That's a great thing about Star Wars. You love the bad guys too Darth Maul, darth Vader, the Emperor you love the bad guys as much as you like the good guys Even more sometimes.
Speaker 3:Even more. You know what the villains are often more times more complex and more interesting.
Speaker 2:Kylo Ren. See, Exactly so. Anyways, we did get some feedback. If you have any feedback for us, if we get something wrong, let us know. We'll eat our crow with that. Anyways, thank you for the feedback and let's see here. The only other thing I need to do is thank the voice artist, Andrew Culpa, who does the announcement at the beginning, the disclaimer and then the underscore. Orchestra for use of the theme song devil with the devil, so with all that fun stuff. Said as always, I'm Warren, I'm Cece and we're here helping you survive HR one. What the fuck moment at a time.
Speaker 1:Yay, thank you.
